December 28, 2015

So the other day, I had an epiphany. Well, maybe not a pure epiphany, but at least
the sudden insight needed to ask a certain question: “Do I actually hate Star Wars?”

It seems implausible, at a glance. My understanding of Star Wars, even beyond its unshakable place in culture and history,
is that it’s storytelling pared down to its most simple and effective
form. (That’s not so true of the
prequels, I hear, but everybody would rather ignore those, so I will too for
now). So by that logic, hating Star Wars means hating the fundamentals
-- if not the very concept -- of fiction.
That’s kind of a problem for a guy who’s trying to become a purveyor of
fiction in his own right. Obviously, I’m
not that far off the deep end.

But I haven’t cared about Star Wars for a long time, if at all. I know what’s in the movies, because --
cultural osmosis outside -- I’ve seen each of them once or twice. And I’ve never had any real problems with them,
even in the face of things like the Plinkett reviews. They were just kind of…there. I’m basically like,
“Oh, Han Solo? Yeah, he’s all
right.” And then I move on. It’s not as if I’ve never been moved to tears
by a fictional character, but even if the seven movies (to date) have their
strong points, I can’t share the enthusiasm of others. I’ll just shrug and say “Yeah, it’s all
right.” And then I’ll move on.

That’s the case with The Force Awakens, as well. And
I’ll explain why (with full spoilers) in a bit.

December 24, 2015

I really want to call this movie The Force Unleashed, and I’ve already
fought subconscious urges to type out Unleashed
instead of Awakens on multiple
occasions. So if I start typing out TFU instead of TFA, that’s why.

It should go without saying, butthere are going to
be some spoilers. As in, all of them.Okay? Good.

Now then.
Go ahead and read on -- because I have a couple of stories to tell.

December 21, 2015

All right, cards on the table: is The Witcher 3 a good game? Yeah, obviously.

Really, you could leave it at that. It’s a good game that’s both fun and
intriguing; there are thrills to be had, but you only have to play for an hour
or two (if that) to realize that this isn’t your standard-fare adventure. That’s kind of a given, since I’m guessing
that The Witcher 3 is one of 2015’s
biggest games both in terms of popularity/hype and the actual scale of its world.
I had my doubts beforehand because open-world games have lost their
pizazz in the wake of an industry that’s trying to run the subgenre into the
ground (should we blame GTA5’s success
for that? Who knows?), but CD Projekt RED’s
latest deserves whatever praise it gets…even if it’s not exactly ZOMG BESTEST
GAEM EVAR material, but whatever. You’re
in good hands with it.

But you’re not here to see me give my blessing,
are you? So let’s get in deep with the
game -- and try not to develop a Gwent addiction. First off…

December 19, 2015

First things first: Ryan and/or Rory, if you’re
reading this, then this isn’t the ten-thousand-word post you’re looking
for. But it’s something for now -- with
a Star Wars reference to boot -- and
the real post will go up this coming
Thursday. Assuming that all goes well
and there’s no major catastrophe, but you get the idea.

Just as well, though. I’m sure that not everyone’s gotten a chance
to go out and see the movie for themselves (as of this post), so the smart thing
to do is to wait until a little time has passed. Not only that, but it’s a good idea to let
the movie sink in. I personally prefer
having time to digest a movie before talking about it in full, and in a lot of
ways that’s preferable to spewing a bunch of words before everything settles
in. With that said, I’ll make a slight
exception this time around. Because A) I
feel like I’ve done more than enough digesting at this point, and B) I might as
well take part in this cultural event and do what everyone else is probably
doing. Because relevance. Or peer pressure. Or self-righteous vindication. Take your pick.

So, this post is NOT a review. It will NOT have spoilers (i.e. anything
beyond what’s been in trailers and widely-released info online). Granted some stuff might allude to events
that happen, but I’ll try to keep things vague.
This post is more of a reaction, full of my opinions, thoughts, and
biases -- as is my standard. You know,
in case anyone out there ever thought they should take me seriously.

December 17, 2015

Okay, if we’re being totally honest? This post actually doesn’t have anything to
do with birds. But I wanted to have a
cute and pun-filled title to start things off, so I figured I might as well.

Also, it still starts with a B. And guess which recently-announced character
for a certain magical fighting game also has a name starting with a B? That’s right -- Billy Kane has been confirmed
for King of Fighters XIV. Get ready for some super-sticky shenanigans.

Right. But seriously,
though. Bayonetta in Smash Bros. That’s amazing. When I saw her revealed, I actually had my breath taken away. I guess that’s the power of an Umbran Witch.

December 14, 2015

If you’re reading this post, then you’re probably
aware of the current trends in the game industry. One of the biggies right now: open-world
games, for better or worse. It makes
sense for the subgenre to gain some traction, though; setting aside graphical
power, the best way to prove the evolution of the medium (technologically or
otherwise) is to increase the scale.
We’re thirty years out from the left-to-right stages of Super Mario Bros., so the assumption is
that a bigger world = a better game. And
I mean assumption.

By now, gamers have caught on to the issues. Sure, worlds are getting bigger and players
can explore more of them -- but so what?
On one hand, you’ve got the Assassin’s
Creed franchise, which puts out these massive, lavishly-rendered,
intensively-researched historical cities one year after another -- and instead
of being playgrounds that sate the mind and soul, they’ve long since devolved
into repetitive chore simulators and window dressing. Meanwhile, the recent Batmangames went from the tightly-knit and
small-scale Arkham Asylum to the
bank-busting and bloated Arkham Knight;
it had a big world and sheer graphical horsepower, but at the cost of a good
story, good gameplay, and a game that didn’t
have to shoehorn
the Batmobile into every situation.
(Again, WHY do you have to drag the Batmobile up a building when you
have the Batplane?)

I guess what I’m getting at here is this: are
video games getting too big? And of
course, MGSV is here to provide one
possible answer.

December 10, 2015

A lot of discussions have been had on the game’s
roster, which is completely fair. Not
all of the choices made in/for that game were what I’d call good, and the lack of some key faces is
proof of that. Chief among them? I’m pretty sure there were some people
calling for Lara Croft (with Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon pretty much
locked away in Activision’s dungeon), but were passionately denied the
chance. Why? Who knows?
I mean, I’m not an expert on the franchise, but I thought that Tomb Raider was a mainstay of the
PlayStation family until semi-recently.
Granted I’m guessing some installments and ports made it to the PC, but
even if Lara’s jumped to other consoles, it’s a moot point when she would’ve
shared a game with aBig Daddy and Isaac Clarke.

Anyway, Tomb
Raider. Thanks to the 2013 reboot
and the recent game, the name’s seen a lot of traction. Like plenty of properties these days, what’s
old is new again; there’s a new Lara Croft and not one, but two brand new
adventures, with a whole new style and the horsepower to make each new game the
most extensive to date. That’s not to
undermine the successes and legacy of the earlier games, of course, but it’s a
safe bet that the new stuff -- spearheaded by Crystal Dynamics -- is here to
stay.

December 7, 2015

That should be blatantly obvious by now, because
collectively I’ve blown about a hundred hours on the modern-day Final Fantasy games, and cleared one of
its latest entries before I even touched Bloodborne. I remedied that eventually, and while I’ve
already said some stuff about the game already -- good things, no less -- I
can’t emphasize it enough. Bloodborne is a good-ass game. If you haven’t played it and you have a PS4,
go play it. Especially now, since the
DLC expansion The Old Hunters is out,
AND there’s a game of the year edition that has it packed in.

But let’s get back to the matter at hand. See, it’s been months -- literal months --
since the last time I booted up Bloodborne. I pretty much forgot how to play, so I
figured it’d be best if I started over with a new character and file. As such, I made a new version of my old
mainstay, Blackules; I just barely made it to the second boss (on accident) the
first time around, but I hoped I’d do much better with a new hunter by my
side. And the initial run would have
gone a lot better if I wasn’t a complete idiot.

I forgot how to heal -- and ended up assuming that
I couldn’t heal until later in the
game.

And you know what?
It might have actually made me -- if not the game in general -- even better.

December 3, 2015

Get it? It’s
clever, because if you think of it as one word (with the 4 as an A), then it
reads like “Psanukkah”. And that sounds
like Hanukkah. Or pretty close to it, at
least.

…It was either this or “PS4nzaa”. Count your blessings.

Well, here we are.
After two full years on the market, the PS4 finally has a games library
worth being excited about. Granted that
library is still full of holes, and it pales in comparison to what the Wii U’s
been offering for much longer without a shred of fanfare, but for what it’s
worth? The PS4’s got some good games on
it now, conclusively. And with the
holiday season encroaching upon us all, I see no better way to honor that
dramatically-reduced rate of disappointment than by talking about some of those
games.

Under normal circumstances, I’d be doing something
like this for the Wii U. But in order to
not be such a biased fanboy, I’ve opted to switch gears and talk about what
Sony’s latest has to offer. It’s only
fair, after all. What games will I talk
about? I’m guessing that you already
know the answer if you’ve read some of my other posts. But for the sake of argument -- and a
cohesive miniseries -- I’ll say that there’s going to be a certain theme attached to each of these four games.